Losing my mind with 3 kids 5 and under

Sick Days

It seems like lately, it’s been an uphill battle to keep my kids from getting sick. I know they’re still little, and that little kids swap germs, drink from each other’s cups, and subsequently get sick often, but today, I visited the pediatrician for the third time in less than two weeks, and that seems pretty excessive to me.

For those of you who are regular readers, you know that the pediatrician’s office is probably my least favorite place in the world, second to the dentist, or perhaps, the ninth circle of hell, so as you can imagine, I have been less than enthused to frequent the pediatrician as often as we seem to have been frequenting lately. We were one of the few unfortunate souls to not have an appointment scheduled today, and wound up waiting FOUR HOURS to be seen. To a four year old, four hours might as well be four years. I always think those people who get all impatient and snappy at the doctor’s office are real assholes, but I guess I was a real asshole today, because after approaching the receptionist’s window as hour three of the four hour wait from hell commenced, I recall telling the receptionist, “wow, I think I’ve started getting grey hair since I got here.”

Once we were called in, one of the nurses mentioned that there was an abnormal result in a specimen sample I had to drop off for Leland earlier this week. I don’t know about you guys, but if you’ve never had to obtain a stool sample, consider yourself VERY LUCKY. I was mentally and emotionally preparing myself for obtaining the sample for hours in advance, and the specimen container comes with this handy little built-in spork for collection of the specimen. I WILL NEVER EAT FROM A SPORK AGAIN.

They informed me that due to the abnormal lab result, they’d have to obtain a urine sample and a blood sample from Leland. For those of you who don’t know, Leland is not potty trained yet, so they attached this ridiculous bag to him, and told me to “make him go.” Oh, okay. Let me just grab my magic piss wand and wave it at his boy parts. Wingardium leviosa. Did that work?

So after I “made him go,” AKA, kept repeating, “are you peeing? Do you have to pee?” and making swishy water noises with my mouth, they were satisfied with the sample, and then they took blood from him, which involved three nurses and myself holding down this 42 pound child, who for some reason, has been endowed with the strength of ten men, while Carl shouted in the background, “STOP DOING THAT TO MY BROTHER! SOMEBODY HELP!”

Shortly thereafter, they obtained throat swabs of both boys, and left me in the exam room with both of them crying, coughing, and Carl wailing, “why did that man choke me with a Q-tip?”

After all the lab results were returned, we discovered that all the suffering we all endured during the blood and the urine tests were both in vain, because everything was normal, and only Carl tested positive for strep throat. Prescriptions in hand, I promised the boys ice cream cones for being such good sports after all that poking and prodding.

As I waited at the receptionist’s desk to make a follow-up appointment, I noticed a woman waiting nearby, smiling wistfully at the boys. I smiled and told the boys to say hello to her, at which point Leland said, “HI, BOOTYHEAD!”